This post has been sponsored by Kroger. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

It was a year ago at around this time that I ventured to a store for the first time post childbirth, Tim driving, Rocco in his carseat. The place we went was Kroger. Our local Kroger is just a couple miles away, close enough to bike to when your body’s in good shape, but, on this particularly sweltering July afternoon, when I was still low on blood supply and heavy on the need for healing, simply walking from the car to the store entrance zapped my energy. Pushing the stroller in the shocking heat, from the parking lot up and through sliding glass doors to the produce section, I heard Tim saying we needed paper towels, and I knew I couldn’t make it that far. Instead, Rocco and I parked ourselves in the plant section, near the entrance and next to the produce, while I watched my husband zig and zag spritely to the other edge of the store. Rocco slept. I wondered if I could keep standing. When we did make it home, I knew it would be a long while before I ever tried that again. The service wasn’t available then, but, if it had been, what would have been a much better option for us in those days of low mobility was ClickList.

ClickList is Kroger’s online ordering system in which you pick out your items from wherever you are, order them, schedule your pickup time and then simply pull up to a designated parking spot like you’re waiting for your order at a Drive-Thru. It’s newly available at the Kroger I went to in Nashville, with more stores being added soon, and I tried it for the first time last month. The speedy pickup was a dream.

Then, one week after that first exploratory trip, as providence would have it, I rammed the bridge of my left foot into our kitchen’s open dishwasher door, rushing around one night in the pre-dinner scramble of bath time and food cooking and dishes to put away. Of course I thought of ClickList again. My little accident happened a few days before Father’s Day, right around the time when Tim had been saying he wanted budino al cioccolato, the chocolate pudding we’ve been making all year on repeat. Hobbling around the house, I knew I didn’t want to walk around a store, but I also knew I needed ingredients, so I shopped online, and we swung by Kroger to have items like heavy cream, chocolate bars and coconut sugar brought out to our car. Sunday afternoon, everything I needed was ready and waiting for me, and Tim was happy to get his chocolate pudding fix. That is the beauty of ClickList.

For someone like me who currently enjoys grocery shopping, especially my weekly morning routine, a service that does the work of picking out ripe cantaloupes and knowing what to swap for products that are out of stock might not seem like a big thing. But all it takes is one prolonged healing process or one busy work week to remind me of the value of little efficiencies like these. When time or energy is at a premium, finding ways to save it is, too.

So it was pretty great that on Father’s Day morning, instead of last-minute grocery shopping, I got to think about last-minute meal prep: marinating chicken to grill, cooking quinoa before church, stirring together a blend of this addictive chocolate velvet known as budino al cioccolato.

Budino al cioccolato, a traditional Italian pudding that came to me earlier this year by way of Domenica Cooks, is thick chocolate custard at its finest–yet with no eggs and no cream required. We usually make it with raw milk we have on hand, but on Father’s Day we tried with mostly cream and some coconut milk. The recipe is versatile enough that either way works. Using mostly cream yields a much heavier, richer pudding, one that you’ll want to eat in small portions, but it’s luxurious chocolate just the same.

Every time illness or injury hits me hard, the experience shocks me as if it were the first time all over again. I forget how convenient it is to be able to be the one wiping down the countertops while putting dinner on the table or picking up Rocco’s toys in a minute or two before taking on a different task. Take these abilities away from me–tell me I can’t drive a car or that I have to ask someone else for help for each simple thing–and I realize all over again how many wonderful gifts are flowing through my fingertips even on routine weekdays at home. I also realize how thankful I am for people and services that help in those moments, from friends who bring over meals to grocery stores that make it easy to pick up groceries in a blink.

budino al cioccolato

The first time we made this pudding, early this year, Rocco was already in bed for the night, and we were meeting the siren call of a sweet tooth. The results wowed us so much, though, we’ve made the pudding again and again and again ever since. True to my childhood memories of licking the bowl of stovetop pudding, I like this recipe best hot; Tim likes it best cold. Either way, with only seven ingredients and a short list of directions, it’s a foolproof keeper we’ll be making a long time more.

Directions:
In a small, tall saucepan over medium heat, bring the milk and/or cream just to a boil. As soon as it starts to boil, remove it from the heat.

Now, in a heavy-bottomed pot like a dutch oven or other Le Creuset, melt the half a stick of butter. Stir in the sugar, salt and flour. It’ll be pretty thick. Ladle out some of the warmed milk into this mixture and stir it in, loosening up the thickness. Stir in the chopped chocolate. Add the rest of the milk. Stir in the vanilla.

Pour budino into serving dishes, and eat hot (so luxurious!) or chill in the fridge for a while to eat later, cold (also luxurious, but in a different way).

This pudding will keep, covered, in the fridge for a week.

*As mentioned in the post, whole milk works best here, but feel free to sub in part cream as desired.

Months ago, on one of the first afternoons this year hinting towards spring, Tim and I stood next to our car in a local community center parking lot, strapping Rocco into his stroller. “Remember all the days we walked up there?” I asked, tilting my chin up to the modern building in front of us and its second-story track. While I was pregnant, we must have walked that track a hundred times, discussing relational dynamics and pregnancy health questions over the shouts of adults’ aerobics classes or the bounce-bounce-thuds of kids shooting hoops in the open gym below. Holding a latte in one hand and pushing the stroller with the other, I rejoined reality as I followed Tim onto the paved path that loops from the parking lot into the park, where kids were screaming on the playground and toddlers were laughing on the swings. That quickly relived memory was just one example of a regular comparison we’ve been making in Rocco’s first year of life, ever talking about the differences between last year and this one.

On Valentine’s Day, it was remembering a quick overnight in Chattanooga while I was almost five months pregnant. In March, it was sighs in recounting an Alpharetta Babymoon. In April, we reminisced about last year’s exhibit at the Mother Earth News Fair in Asheville, sampled up einkorn salad and sourdough bread to strangers and collapsing into our mountain bed and breakfast at night.

So of course, last weekend, on the first Saturday of May, sitting at a picnic table sharing kale salad with Rocco, I thought about last year’s first Saturday of May, when he was still in my belly, and about the side-view photo I took in Frothy Monkey’s bathroom, my blue floral dress billowing out and in front of my chest.

It’s just, how could we not, while pushing our two-toothed child around in his Britax, think of a year ago, rubbing my belly while we hiked through 12 South? Or, as the leaves turn green and flowers bud, this year alongside our baby boy pulling himself up on his crib railings and squawking for a bite of pizza crust, how could we not think of last spring, when we opened gifts at our baby shower and tried to imagine using that Nose Frida on an actual child?

Today, about six weeks to one year, Rocco crawls. The baby we talked about on all those afternoon walks now shouts. He eats kale. When I leave the room, he cries. When I come near him, he reaches out his arms. In the mornings, after his first meal, he says “mama” over and over again, sitting with me in the glider in his room.

On Sunday, a few feet away from me in his bouncer, he watched me clapping and then seriously, steadfastly met my gaze.

“Clap with me, buddy,” I invited him, the way I’ve done a dozen times before, demonstrating the rhythmic separating, bringing together, separating, bringing together of my two palms. Hesitantly, he lifted his hands. He brought them together. He watched our response.

“You did it!” Tim and I exclaimed to him in unison.

“Way to go, Rocco! You clapped!”

All around us, ever present, Life With a Baby is this obvious, nonignorable, demanding-our-attention reality from the moment we wake, with morning cries calling from the other room. It’s affected our schedules and our grocery routines and even the likelihood that we’ll both be able to be somewhere together at the same time. Our baby is different; we are different; life is different—but, it’s worth noting, not every thing’s changed. After all, even if our walking and talking on a warm day has added a third party, we’re still walking and talking just the same.

“So this guy on the radio was suggesting this idea for engaging teenage children,” I launched into discussion with Tim while we rounded a corner at Sevier Park. “At the dinner table, everyone has to go around and say what five things matter most to him or her. Like, ‘these are the things I value most in life.’ Nobody can eat until everybody answers. Then you’re supposed to use that to start some good talks.”

I laughed about it when I recounted the story, imagining how typical teenagers would react, and we started talking about something else as we rolled Rocco ahead of us, out of the park, onto neighborhood sidewalks. But a few days later, back at home, I remembered that original idea and circled back, asking, “Hey, I never found out, how would you answer that question, by the way? What would be your five things?” Tim answered. He asked me. While our first few answers were almost identical and our overall concepts the same, it was the nuances of how we thought through what matters that fascinated me.

In February or March, I checked out Madeleine L’Engle’s Circle of Quiet from the library. In it, she describes a point in her life, her fortieth birthday, I believe, where she has received yet another rejection letter from yet another publisher, and, after so much working and so much trying, she decides maybe it’s time to listen to these experts that keep saying, “no thanks,” and give up. If everyone’s telling you you’re no good at something, and they keep telling you, at some point you have to listen, right? So she says she’s done being a writer. Clearly, she’s got no skill. She goes into the kitchen thinking about it and thinking about it and then, just like that, it hits her: even as she’s deciding not to write anymore, her mind is busy, strategizing, conceptualizing, working out a story with her very decision not to write as the plot. In this, she realizes she doesn’t write to be published, well, not just to be published. She writes because it was part of what she was made to do. It’s part of how she thinks. She feels about writing, maybe the way Eric Liddell describes feeling about running, who says it was God who made him fast and that, “When I run, I feel His pleasure.” She writes because she can’t help it; she writes because she can’t not.

I also think I am most myself when I write. When Tim and I asked each other to name what five things we think matter most, meaningful communication was on my list. I work with words, think with words, show love with words, enjoy words, so it’s easier for me to tend towards relationships where words take center space. Maybe this is just me; maybe it’s not. Words are how we share ourselves with one another. They’re how we communicate. They’re part of relationship; you might even say they are relationship. Whether or not you are a person who loves words, words matter. To know one another, we have to, in some way or another, say something and respond.

Before we got married, we talked about love languages and about how mine’s words and Tim’s is not. It used to trouble me; if these are languages, what does it mean when we’re speaking different tongues? What if I can’t pick his up? What if he can’t learn mine? But, in the years since, here is something I have seen about words I didn’t know before: compliments are not the only way words love.

In marriage, before and after a baby came, I have seen that loving each other can mean, more than affirmation, using words to hash ideas out. It can be talking through memories about my beachball-belly and how it used to make me gasp. It can mean patiently explaining a new concept, responding to its challenges and not leaving the room as you do. It can be sharing conversation while you’re making dinner or in the living room, while you’re walking through a park or around an indoor track, asking, “What do you think?” and “Why?” Because words let us share ourselves with one another, words are a way to say, “Hi, here’s part of my soul; can I trust you with it?” and wait for a response. This, Tim and I do all day long. We did it while walking during pregnancy; we do it while we’re baking einkorn snickerdoodle cookies at night.

Since before Rocco was born, I’ve been telling people I can’t wait to hear him talk. “I want to know what he thinks!” I say.

Friends caution us, “Just wait. Once they start talking, they never stop.”

But, still, even though he may be noisy and silly and simple, even though my task-oriented personality will have to remind myself to stop to hear, I hope when Rocco knows what it means to speak, he’ll know, with us, at least, he’ll be heard. I hope that in the same ways his dad has loved me by listening, by talking while we’re baking cookies, by discussing good things and hard things and sad, we’ll be able to love him. I hope I’ll remember to keep trying to communicate—and to let him.

The word love comprises so much—it’s inspired poetry! caused great sacrifice! led to new humans being brought into this world!—but, among those things, also, at the very least, love must include this: to look one another in the eye, to be vulnerable, to listen, to use words to know.

Tim’s Einkorn Snickerdoodle Cookies

This recipe, which Tim adapted from the king-sized chocolate chip cookies in our book, The Einkorn Cookbook, is a recipe he’s made a handful of times over the last year or two, quickly whipping together ingredients and rolling balls of dough to bake. Because it uses cold butter, you can make it in minutes, and because you do it all in the food processor, there are minimal mixing utensils to clean up. The cookies themselves, which we baked again together last night in the first 20 or so minutes while the baby slept, are soft, slightly chewy, studded with crystallized sugar all around the outside. They’re bakery cookies you can make at home. And, for me, they’re a reminder that, when so much of life is (wonderfully!) different, some things are still (wonderfully!) the same.Makes about a dozen cookies

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Place butter, sugar, milk and almond extract in a food processor* and blend until creamy. Add egg yolk and combine again. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda and sea salt, and mix until thoroughly combined, opening up the processor to scrape down the sides with a spoon or spatula once.

In a small bowl, combine cinnamon and cane sugar.

Scoop out tablespoon-sized lumps of dough, form into balls and roll in the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place on prepared baking sheets.

Bake cookies six or so to a sheet, for 13 to 15 minutes or until cracked and set but not hard. In our oven, we’ve found that baking sheets on the bottom rack yield firmer cookies; baking sheets on the top yield softer.

*Without a food processor, this recipe is a little messier, but no less delicious. Follow the same instructions, but blend everything with a mixer in a bowl.

I woke up this morning wanting chocolate chip pancakes, so after Tim and I split an apple (fruit in the morning every morning!), these einkorn rye beauties, studded with melted chocolate throughout, were side by side with us at our computer screens. I went with rye because of the bag of rye flour in our freezer, which came in my first Thrive Market order last week. (Short sales pitch: Have you heard of Thrive Market yet? They say they’re Costco meets Whole Foods. And while they’re not paying me to tell you this, we did sign up to be affiliates after joining the service, because, you guys, last week I got two jars of organic peanut butter + two boxes of maple buckwheat cereal + a bag of Purely Elizabeth granola + five boxes (!!) of One Degree cereal + two bags of [rye and buckwheat] flour for a whopping total of $41, including the free shipping and handling. OK, commercial over. You can go learn more here if you like.) Back to the pancakes.

So should you wake up tomorrow morning wanting pancakes, like I woke up this morning wanting pancakes, whether or not you want to blame it on the small human growing under your shirt, here are a few things you’ll want to know: Using half rye and half all-purpose (einkorn) flour, the way both Naturally Ella and A Cozy Kitchen do in their versions linked to below, creates a light, fluffy pancake texture. Mixing together the batter takes minutes, literally. The process is lazy-morning easy: mix dry, mix wet, combine, cook on the skillet. While we added chocolate chips (because I found chocolate chips made with two ingredients! popping them while making pancakes made me feel like a kid again!), you could add anything you like: sliced bananas, nuts, blueberries, etc. And, last thing, while adding maple syrup on top of these already decadent pancakes is pretty much gilding the lily, I will say I enjoyed every bite.

Happy weekending! Happy pancake-eating! May the things that fill your bellies be the things to lift your gaze and gladden your heart. If there are days when eating pancakes feels ordinary and days where eating pancakes feels like luxury, I wish you more and more of the latter because lately the more I give thanks for, the more I see. It’s so much better and happier to name our joys than to fixate on our sorrows. We have so much! We are rich indeed! Pancakes for everyone! Hooray!

Chocolate Chip Rye Pancakes
Adapted from Naturally Ella and A Cozy Kitchen
Makes about 8 or 9 small to medium pancakes or, enough for two hefty servings

If you aren’t a huge fan of rye bread, don’t panic about this recipe and swear off trying it because rye. Listen: the rye is a note here, but it is not the star. Rather, the pancakes are soft and sweet and so, so easy to get down. Plus they’re a little more interesting and less boring because of the just slightly rye hint of taste.

Directions:
In a large bowl, stir together all the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients, stirring them together until combined.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add a teaspoon of coconut oil, warming until oil and pan are hot. Scoop out a tablespoon of batter onto pan and cook for a few minutes, until small bubbles form on the surface. Flip pancake and continue cooking until done.

Place cooked pancakes on plates and serve immediately—or, if desired, place in warm (around 200F degrees) oven until ready to serve.

My friend Leslie runs a Chicago-based jewelry business called LittleGemsUSA, from which 50 percent of all proceeds go straight to charity. Today it is our pure honor to feature that business here, alongside a recipe for the homemade graham crackers I am obsessed with, and accompanied by a giveaway for the sweet little bracelet I’m wearing in the pictures. I love Leslie and I love what she’s doing, so it was my idea that she do an interview/giveaway (UPDATE: congratulations, Katrina!) here. When she sent me the answers to her questions, I cried, because, in case you’re wondering, she actually is as kind and humble as she sounds. After the Q/A and photos below, you’ll find more information about these graham crackers and more information about Leslie’s business, including how to win the bracelet and you can go purchase jewelry that will support women and children in need. This is one of those posts that I feel really proud of and thankful for, so please do scroll all the way to the end.

Q: Tell us the short 60-second version of what LittleGemsUSA does. What is it? Why should people know about it?

A: LittleGemsUSA is a jewelry company I started so that women can look stylish and also make a positive impact in the lives of women and children in need. 50% of profits are given to charities that help women and children. Currently we have fashion jewelry as well as gemstones set in sterling silver.

Q: What made you want to start this company?

A: A couple years ago I had my eyes opened to the fact that so many people around me are experiencing immense pain. Just meeting physical needs of food and housing for some people is almost impossible. I looked around and thought, “Why isn’t somebody doing something about this?” I wanted to see big corporations that have big money help fix the problems. I justified myself in thinking I can’t change the world. I’m only me. At some point though, I thought, “What if I helped just one person?” If I was the person praying in desperation, wouldn’t I want someone to at least try? If I fail, at least I fail while trying.

So I started LittleGemsUSA. Crazy as it sounds, I feel it is my worship, whatever happens or doesn’t happen is for God’s Glory. You’ll find these words on the bottom right of every page on my site – Soli Deo Gloria…to God Alone be the Glory.

Q: What has been the most exciting part of working with this business?

A: I don’t know if I would say it’s exciting to me as much as moving. I recall earlier this year when we raised money for women in Rwanda that don’t have work or a way to provide for their family. At the end of the campaign we were able to buy two sewing machines. Going to bed that night it was the first time I knew exactly what this meant for these women. I was moved to tears. For all the struggles to tag inventory and lug it to shows, untangling necklaces and recordkeeping, it was worth it to know that I have helped change the lives of two women. In effect I helped get them a job or a career. Earlier I said what if I just helped one person, but now I knew I had helped two. It was exciting, yes, but I’m prone to water works so, crying it out brought joy, if that makes sense. A childhood friend is in Rwanda (single, young woman) so her charity, Love Alive International, is near to my heart.

Through charities, we have helped victims of trafficking here in Chicago, helped keep girls off the streets in India, bought Christmas gifts for kids, bought two sewing machines for two women in Rwanda, supported a sports program in Chicago that keeps kids safe from gangs, raised funds for school supplies for underprivileged children and also funds to send six children to school in Rwanda. Now we are raising money for Angel Tree to purchase Christmas gifts for children whose parents are incarcerated. These are kids that most of us are not thinking about.

Q: What are some of your biggest challenges?

A: My biggest challenge is getting the word out about LittleGemsUSA.com. I am not the person that wants to ask favors of friends. I’m an independent single woman and I want to get it done myself. I want to be the one helping others, but the fact is that I can’t do this alone. You start a business and realize you have to know something about everything….impossible. I have to depend on my sisters (they help me constantly) and people I’ve met online to help spread the word. I work full-time so my lunch hours and evenings are spent trying to learn about marketing or websites. It’s like you’re drinking from a fire hose. But most of all I need help of people like me that think they are just “one person” [because] that one person has a voice. Follow us and share our posts and you’ll be putting your hand out and pulling a person up who is praying for that hand of help.

Q: How can we help?

A: Please join our email list [scroll to the bottom of the homepage for the signup form]. Other than [this giveaway at Food Loves Writing], the giveaways that I do are only for those who are on my list. Also, follow us on Instagram or Facebook. We put most of our content there.

Q: If someone wants to buy a Christmas gift through LG, what would he or she need to do? How does it work?

Go to our website and select the Store menu option. You’ll see categories on the side, or [you can] browse through everything. We accept credit cards, and orders over $50 receive free shipping. After you purchase, the order comes in to me. I get home from work, first make myself a cup of Shanna’s hot chocolate [haha!], then wrap the LittleGem and get it out to the post office the next day on my lunch hour. I collect the money throughout the campaign, subtract out expenses and then give half the profit to charity.

For more information about LittleGemsUSA, go straight to its website and shop now! Oh! And every commenter on this post will be automatically entered in the giveaway, which ends next Saturday, December 20. For a bonus entry, let us know you subscribed to the LittleGems newsletter!

One day last week I was mega craving homemade crackers and went on Instagram, where I found a pretty picture of molasses crackers that sent me straight to experiment. While I never found that user’s recipe, I did find scores of graham cracker recipes online that used molasses, and playing around with those formulas, using einkorn and spelt flours we had on hand, this is what resulted. They are crazy good. I mean, I-ate-a-batch-in-two-days good. Sweet and molasses-y and perfect for eating with a little chocolate on top. Another bonus: you mix everything in the food processor, roll out the dough, slice it and bake it, that’s it. The whole thing is not a long process, and that means faster crackers to enjoy!

A few quick notes:
— The thinner you roll the dough, the crisper crackers you’ll be able to achieve. I found that 1/16″ thickness was ideal, using a dough scraper (like this one!) to pull up the sliced cracker dough from the counter onto parchment. If you go thicker, the dough is easier to work with, but you’ll have more cookie-like crackers, also good, but different. Leave them uncovered for a few days and they’ll get a little firmer, however.

— The smaller you cut the dough, the faster the crackers will cook. We did little fluted rounds and some large and small rectangles. The smallest crackers baked up in 10 to 11 minutes, the largest in more like 13 to 15.

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Place einkorn and spelt flours, coconut sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a food processor; pulse to combine. Next, add the cubed butter, and pulse until distributed throughout (i.e., you don’t see huge butter chunks anymore). Last, add the liquids (molasses, honey, 1/4 cup milk and vanilla extract), whirring the food processor until everything is combined. If the dough won’t come together, you can add a little more milk; if you overdo it and the dough is too moist, you can just work in more flour in the next step.

Form into large mass of dough and plop onto floured counter. Split in half, setting unused half in plastic in fridge. Working with remaining dough, roll out to 1/16” thickness or as thin as you can get it. Cut out shapes with a knife or cookie cutters, and place them on your prepared baking sheets. Fork. Bake 10 to 15 minutes, until firm but not burned (watch carefully). Repeat process with second half of dough until all dough has been baked.

If your crackers were a little thick, they may be soft coming out of the oven, but they’ll firm up in a few days if you leave them uncovered on the counter.

Suggested serving ideas:
Dipped in tea
Eaten with squares of chocolate on top
Paired with homemade marshmallows (I want to try these with maple syrup and coconut sugar) and melted chocolate for homemade s’mores
Ground up for homemade graham cracker crusts in pies

*LittleGemsUSA provided the bracelet for the giveaway, but we were not compensated in any other way. All opinions express (other than interview question answers!) are our own.

Happy December! Today is the day The Einkorn Cookbook officially releases, so if you haven’t ordered your copy yet, now would be a great time to do so—go ahead, I’ll wait—and once you’ve got a copy in your hands this winter season, why not cuddle up with it alongside a glass of homemade hot chocolate?

It’s a myth that making homemade hot chocolate has to take longer and/or be more involved than making the packaged kind that comes in a box. Have you believed this? Don’t. To put together your own, real-foods, deliciously rich and creamy hot chocolate, here are the pantry staples that you need: milk (raw milk or coconut milk are our favorites), cocoa powder and a sweetener (honey or maple syrup work great). You mix the three of them together, proportions according to your tastes, and have a hot, chocolatey beverage ready in 10 minutes or less. In today’s version, I added a bit of cayenne pepper and a dash of salt, but those frills are entirely optional.

While we’re on the topic of winter comfort foods, the folks at Yahoo! Foods recently told us about their recipe database, and I had a lot of fun one afternoon scrolling through all the pretty pictures and clicking around for hot bowls of winter favorites, from red pepper cauliflower soup to mushroom pot pies to fat and sugar-studded snickerdoodles. I think I’ve said this on the blog before but a long time ago I dated a boy who didn’t understand the idea of comfort food—what makes food comforting? what does it mean?—and I found myself fumbling with an explanation of warmth and creaminess and eating with a spoon. Really though, I think comfort food is bigger than a type of recipe and more about the feelings you associate with it.

In December, I like fancy desserts and homemade hot chocolate and Christmas cookies, probably because they remind me of the days when I was small. It doesn’t matter that it was almost 70 degrees here in Nashville yesterday (!!) or that our grass is still green, December makes me want a steaming cup in my hands and winter greenery over the fireplace. Do you guys relate to this? Are you playing Christmas music and indulging on holiday movies? If so, we’re in this together—hot chocolate and all.

Our Homemade Hot ChocolateServes two

Of course you can use whatever milk you drink in this drink formula, as long as you’re willing to adjust amounts and methods slightly as needed. Examples: when we use raw milk, the result is cleaner, thinner; with coconut milk, it’s richer and creamier. With raw milk, I usually use a whisk to mix the ingredients in the saucepan; with coconut milk, I pull out my immersion blender to make sure the cocoa fully dissolves. Likewise, I found 1/4 cup maple syrup was just right, but 1/4 cup honey felt, to us, too sweet. The beauty of making your own hot chocolate is you control how dark it is, how sweet it is, etc. Enjoy!

I’m a rusher. I do things quickly. Case in point, sometime years ago, I read about a cool cookbook, emailed it to Tim as a part joke, part serious suggestion of something he buy me for an upcoming gift, and as soon as the note left my draft screen, I forgot about it. On to the next thing. Good thing he didn’t though because that’s how Breakfast Lunch Tea joined my cookbook hoard last August, when he gave it to me as a birthday gift. It’s such a fun cookbook. Written by a bakery owner, it’s super spare and minimal in style but filled with highly tried and tested recipes and the kind of inspiring headnotes that say things like “everyone loves these at the bakery” or “this is one of my favorites.” I loved it afresh when he handed it to me last year, and I loved it afresh again last night when we got talking about it and I immediately jumped up from where we were sitting to grab it from its home on our waist-high wooden bookshelf in the dining room. Soon the two of us were talking about recipes we wanted to try out, like chocolate mousse and gluten-free shortbread and, ooh, hellllooo, blueberry scones.

This morning, mixing together ingredients and feeling dough between my fingers was just the thing to help me mentally unwind and remind me that, oh yeah, I like to bake. It’s easy to forget that when you haven’t been mentally present in the kitchen for a while. I like what Farhana Dawood wrote at BBC News last August, right around the time when Tim gave me this book, that “there is a physical element to baking – kneading the dough or cutting out cookie shapes. But there is also a strong creative or artistic component – the intricate decoration of cakes or biscuits.” It’s true—it’s amazing how the act of putting together a recipe can release some sort of pent-up mental block (same article: it’s even sometimes recommended as a therapy for depression!). And when you have a tested recipe to rely on, you can be just creative enough, while also knowing you can count on what results at the end. In our version of the kamut scones here, we’ve gone a little creative with some ingredient swaps but still basically followed the structure of Rose Bakery’s version: what results are tall, light, flaky towers perfect for breaking in half, topping with cream or honey.

These kamut scones are an adaptation from the cookbook Tim bought me for my birthday last August. We swapped a few ingredients, such as the kamut flour, but the basic formula is all Rose Bakery. These beauties are light and flaky, tall and biscuit-like, dimpled with blueberries that hold their form through the mixing and baking that occurs. Tim says they're especially nice topped with honey.

In a large measuring cup, beat one of the eggs, and then add enough milk to reach the 1 1/4 cup (300ml) level.

Make a well in the middle of the bowl of flour and pour in the milk/egg mixture. Use a fork to slowly add the flour to the milk, working the mixture together. Finish mixing by using your hands, just enough to turn the mixture into a dough. (If it's too dry to come together, add a little extra milk; if it's too wet, add a little extra flour. You don't want the dough to be sticky anymore.)

On a lightly floured surface, pat dough into a solid shape that's 1 1/2 inches (3cm) tall. Use a small (2"ish) biscuit or round cookie cutter to cut out rounds, and place them on the prepared baking sheet. If they are almost touching, that's totally okay.

Beat the remaining egg in a small bowl and brush on top of the scones. Sprinkle organic sugar on top of that.

Bake scones for 15 to 20 minutes, until lightly golden. If the scones bake into each other, that's totally okay; just separate them after they've cooled.

Our friend Terry said something to us last week about how culture is like a thumbprint embedded on our souls. Like a lot of things we don’t pick or ask for, that thumbprint is predetermined for us when we’re born; it surrounds us; we swim in it. Like the air we breath, our culture is part of everything we think and do, affecting us, being affected by us, and yet virtually unnoticeable. I am a different person because I was born into the geographic location of the Chicago suburbs and not South Florida or small-town Texas or northern California, I realize, the first child of a Midwestern couple who were starting a new business, not working at office jobs, and a new family, not a big one, in the early 1980s. My personality and perspectives have been affected by a childhood in private school instead of public school where my mom and not my dad cooked most nights and my family ate out often. I went to northern Wisconsin most summers, not the East or the West. It was normal to me that people sent annual Christmas cards and gifts required thank-you notes and when someone came over to your house you should try to be a good host.

Most of the ways I’ve been affected by the culture I grew up in are so tied up into the way I look at things and do things, I can only see them when I step outside that culture into a new one, like I’ve done over the last three years, surrounded by different people who didn’t grow up in Naperville, Illinois. Until I’m confronted with someone else’s reality—in a new place or in a new conversation, in a story over coffee or in a story on a big screen—it’s hard to see the world as bigger than what I experience with my own pair of eyes.

I’ve always been fascinated by this. It’s why I like books and blogs and meeting open people who will talk about their lives. It’s also part of what’s drawn me to a new book, Smitten with Squash (Northern Plate), from the Minnesota Historical Society, written by our blog friend Amanda Paa. It’s the fourth in what the MHS calls The Northern Plate Series, a book collection that celebrates, one by one, foods that are beloved and prolific in the American Midwest.

If you didn’t grow up in the middle of the United States, you may or may not be familiar with the annual bumper crop of squash everybody’s talking about around this time of year. But when I was a kid, summer meant people would bring bags of zucchini to school or to church, handing them out to anyone who wanted them and would use them up. People put zucchini in cakes at church potlucks. There were zucchini gratins and zucchini slices roasted on the grill. And apparently what I experienced in Illinois is not too different from what others experienced in Minnesota, nor what Tim and I experienced at our farm pickup last week when there was a take-as-much-as-you-can approach going on with the plethora of summer squash.

“Summer squash is promiscuous without even trying to be,” Amanda writes. “It’s a shame they are sometimes taken for granted, which most often happens when they are growing at the speed of weeds.”

It’s funny, but when I read those words, I mostly think how much it makes sense to me, how alike a life in Minnesota can be to a life in Illinois, how people in certain regions have relatable experiences simply because of weather and the way things grow. I like when it’s easy to picture what someone else is talking about. I like it when what someone’s saying makes sense, even if that something he or she is saying is about a simple, fairly basic thing like food.

I watched that popular Brene Brown video on empathy with my friend Rachel yesterday; maybe you’ve seen it? If you haven’t, it’s worth watching, if only because Brene raises the very valid point that relating to someone else’s condition can take effort. While, sometimes, finding a relatable quality in another person is as simple as squash, sometimes it’s a lot of talking and listening and hunting for the always available “me too” buried inside each one of us with one another. Listening to someone else’s life experiences, coming alongside him or her to step into a new pair of shoes, can hurt—because what that person experiences hurts. Bearing one another’s burdens can be awkward and uncomfortable and make me feel like I have no idea what to say.

I am learning to recognize that initial struggle, that wanting to push away the they’re-too-different problem to focus on something else, is a symptom of my own unique culture and perspective. It’s a sign that this person isn’t exactly like me, not in the obvious surface ways of summer squash soup recipes and harsh winters and families that celebrate birthdays by going out to eat, and so I must force myself to remember he or she is like me, too. Even with different geography and genetics and birth order and finances and interests, all of us humans are people birthed onto the earth without warning, without asking for it, without getting to pick the family we’ll live in or the town we’ll call home. Part of the great human experience is dwelling in one place while realizing it is not the only one, living one kind of life while interacting with people who live different ones, being present in the day you’re being given while being open to entering into someone else’s. And even if you live in a town with two people, if you’re reading this blog you have an Internet connection and the ability to read and that means you have endless windows available to you, letting you into other people’s souls. Everything everybody’s doing is telling you about himself or herself. There’s so much to learn about one another if we’ll listen.

As mentioned above, the idea for this recipe comes from Amanda Paa's Smitten with Squash (Northern Plate) cookbook, which we were sent a copy of, and the cheesy zucchini crisps are an adaptation of her zatar-spiced Parmesan zucchini crisps on page 21.

As written, this recipe makes simple, fresh, squash-flavored soup for two and cheesy zucchini crispies for a crowd. This is because I quadrupled the original cheesy crisps recipe in favor of the rather large amount of squash I had shredded in the food processor.... and I made extra. If you, on the other hand, want just a few crispies, reduce the crisps recipe by four (i.e., try shredding 1/2 squash to start).

Public service announcement: I don't recommend eating more than five crispies in one sitting, just from my own personal experience, even though once you taste a bite, you'll want to.

Fill a large stockpot with three quarts of water (and a pinch of salt, if desired), and bring to a boil over medium to high heat. Add chopped squash and leeks, cover the pot and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook for about 20 minutes or until vegetables are fork-tender.

Meanwhile, start the cheesy zucchini crispies: Preheat the oven to 375F/190C and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Place the chopped zucchini in a food processor until it's shredded. Then, place the shredded zucchini in a tea towel and wring it out over the sink as much as possible to remove the excess water. In a large bowl, combine the wrung-out squash with cheese, olive oil and seasoning. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and scoop spoonfuls of the mixture onto prepared baking sheets. Flatten each one, leaving room between each mound. Bake crispies for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown and shimmering. (I did this in two batches, i.e., four sheets total.) When crispies are done, remove from oven and let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a serving dish.

Once vegetables are softened, drain the water from the pot. Then, in the same pot, mash vegetables with a large fork or a potato masher until smashed throughout. Add butter, milk, salt and pepper, and mash with a large fork until combined. Then, use an immersion blender to smooth out the mixture (alternative: transfer mixture in batches to a Vitamix or food processor). You want to almost purée the mixture but not quite, so that there are still some chunks throughout. Taste and adjust for salt as you like.

Warm a tablespoon of coconut oil in a small saucepan until hot. Lay basil leaves inside for a minute or two, until crisp. Remove to a paper-towel-lined plate to dry. (This is very easy and very fast but fairly impressive and fun.)

I am writing this post from our bedroom, sitting cross-legged on the white bedspread, the white noise of our air-conditioning loud enough on this warm April Monday to have me wondering why it’s belting out so fiercely and also if I’ve missed the sound of the oven timer going off. I just got up to check—both the air-conditioning and the oven—and turned the air-conditioning off and pulled a tray of near-burned oatmeal cookies from the oven. This activity is sort of a microcosm of my entire life, maybe yours too, this making of messes and then cleaning them up. I mean, from the moment I get up (make the bed!) to the projects throughout the day (Workout; pile sweaty clothes that smell like elephants into the hamper. Do laundry; dump it onto the bed to fold. Prepare dinner; now wash the dishes. Get an assignment; untangle the documents and instructions into something that makes sense). Chaos, order, chaos, order. When Tim’s family was in town visiting a few weeks ago, I told my father-in-law I think I have a learning disability or social disorder where I am constantly seeking order in every environment. I hate the chaos! You should know that Tim’s dad is a very compassionate man, and he has this ability to sound very understanding when he talks, but he nodded and said something like “me too” after that, which was pretty nice of him, I think. If someone is going to tell you they agree with their assessment of your mental lacks, it’s good to have them be empathetic about it.

I always see the hairs I’m shedding on the bathroom floor, every day. I notice the mud that gets tracked in in the kitchen and the stack of bills that need to be organized, and something in my brain throws them, each one of them, onto a sort of Ferris wheel where they keep rotating around and around in my head, demanding I pay attention to them in regular rotation. Even as I’m writing this post, for example, I’m thinking about organizing my dresser (I probably won’t; that one can circle around a few more times) and about what to make for dinner (oh, good, there are beets roasting in the oven, so chalk that one up as almost done). Life is disordered and ordered all at once, you know? My friend Carrie told me at lunch last week that, in her mind, everything is happening all at once; she can’t compartmentalize the problems from the fun Sunday afternoons or the arguments with friends or the great new restaurant we just tried or the children without families around the world. It’s all happening at once to her, she says, and when she tells me that, I nod my head. The brain I’ve been given takes it all in, everything at once, and up in my head it’s chaotic and complex and I can talk for a straight hour without coming up for air when I start to let it out. (Just ask Tim.)

There are good things about this personality, like there are good things about every personality. But there are hard things, too, hard for other people and hard for me, and unlike some personalities that don’t have to think too much about this, I have to take its hardness and throw it up on that Ferris wheel and let it circle back from time to time to be analyzed and examined to be better understood.

This is all what just came out of me when I sat down to write about these affogatos, the idea of which is just pure brilliance: hot beverage (usually espresso but in this case orange cinnamon rooibos tea) poured over a scoop (or two) of sweet (in this case maple honeybush) ice cream. I start thinking about the complexity of life when I want to write about these drinks because I start thinking about the complexity of our time with them yesterday. The drinks are simple. The disaster zone we created in our dining room with them yesterday was not. What started as a black backdrop on the table and a black backdrop behind the French press turned into a dropped backdrop, a broken French press, hot liquid seeping through our farmhouse table and onto the floors and mismatched chairs, broken glass in pieces all over the room, and the two of us throwing towels at everything like a person throws life rafts to the drowning. Life is beautiful and terrible, ordered and disordered, wondrous and chaotic all at once.

ps. I learned to make animated gifs! I hope they don’t make your head hurt.
pps. Einkorn Cookbook update: It is already available for preorder on Amazon. What! One of my oldest friends is getting married Thanksgiving weekend, and I think about her when I look at that far-away publication date. Jackie, you’ll be married when the book comes out! Woah.

Start by making the ice cream: In a medium-sized saucepan, heat milk, cream, sea salt, and honeybush tea bags over medium heat for 15 minutes, whisking occasionally (do not boil).

In a medium bowl, whisk together maple syrup and egg yolks. Add 1 tablespoon of warm milk at a time to egg mixture and whisk each tablespoon in until you have added approximately 1/2 cup. Then pour the bowl of tempered egg mixture into the warm milk and stir gently. Stir constantly, being careful not to allow the bottom of the pan to burn or stick. Keep stirring until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon (up to another 10-15 minutes, depending on your heat level).

Remove mixture from heat and allow to cool (we cooled in a separate bowl in the fridge) to room temperature before processing in your ice cream maker. Makes 1 quart of ice cream.

To make tea: Steep loose-leaf orange-cinnamon rooibos in boiling water for 5 to 10 minutes, until strong and fragrant. Strain or press in French press.

To make affogatos: Scoop 1 to 2 fat scoops of honeybush ice cream into each mug, and pour hot tea on top. Garnish with chocolate as desired.

Notes

Teas provided by Lov Organic. The naturally sweet honeybush tea is so light you almost don't believe it's tea when it's brewed, but it's naturally sweet enough that you don't even need to add honey when you drink it; the orange cinnamon rooibos is the perfect accessory for shaved chocolate and ice cream. We're obsessed.

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